REMINDER
Citizen
of the Year
It is
time to make nominations for Pittsfield’s 2018 Citizen of the Year.
Please let us know who you feel deserves this honor for their
actions and activities benefiting our town. A panel of former
Citizens of the Year will decide from the nominations submitted who
will get this honor. Please send your nomination as to who and why
your nominee should be honored to:
Citizen
of the Year
PO Box
173
Pittsfield, NH 03263
Nominations must be received by June 13, 2018. Thank
you.
The
Suncook Valley Area Lions Club (serving Barnstead & Pittsfield) had
an Induction Ceremony at its monthly meeting and welcomes its newest
members Gary and Wanda Mullen from Barnstead to the club. If you
like having fun with friends and the good feeling you get from
helping others please contact membership chair Ed Vien at 435-5052
for more info.
The
Merrimack County Stamp Collectors will hold its monthly meeting at
the Bow Mills United Methodist Church, 505 South St., Bow, on June
19, beginning at 1 pm. We invite all who are interested in
stamp collecting to attend, share their interest, buy, sell and
trade. Meet other collectors and learn more about their hobby
and enjoy the fellowship of others with varied interests in
Philatelic resources and issues. Gain new insight and
knowledge, sharing news articles and stories abut stamp collecting.
For more information call Dan Day at 603-228-1154.
Early
Woodworking
in
Pittsfield, Part 2
Join
the Pittsfield Hisorical Society on June 13th at 7:00 pm for another
informative presentation of the history of woodcraft in our town as
told through its chairs. Using antique examples currently on display
at the Historical Society Museum, we'll walk through the evolution
of chair making and discover trade secrets old and new. The hands-on
demonstration of traditional joinery is a must-see!
The
Pittsfield Historical Society Headquarters is located at 13 Elm
Street in Pittsfield.
School
Funding Workshop – 6:00 p.m., Wednesday, June 13 – All Invited
Pittsfield taxpayer: here’s your chance to learn more about
the “worsening inequities in New Hampshire school funding,” as one
of the lead attorneys in the Claremont lawsuits has described the
challenges faced by Pittsfield and other “property poor” towns.
Although the New Hampshire Supreme Court has ruled that the
responsibility for public education rests with the state, the
related issues of equity in school spending for students and of
equity in bearing the tax burden to support public schools still
disadvantages students and taxpayers from towns like Pittsfield.
In
fact, the current state funding system allows for “children in
school districts with more valuable real estate [to] benefit from
higher per-pupil spending, while their parents pay property taxes at
much lower rates,” according to Attorney John Tobin.
Executive Councilor Andru Volinsky, also a lead attorney in the
Claremont lawsuits, will present a workshop on New Hampshire school
funding at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 13, at PMHS. All
Pittsfield residents are invited and urged to participate in this
opportunity.
The
Pittsfield School Board is considering steps to address this
inequity. Bring your voice into this important conversation:
6:00 p.m. June 13.
Letter
To The Editor
On May
22, the Selectmen held a public hearing with the Library Trustees to
accept comment on the disposition of the barn located at 37 Main
Street. This barn, located next to the library, was donated to the
town for future expansion of the library.
The
main concern is the cost of restoring the barn so that it can serve
as a functional wing to the library. It is clear that the library is
not ready to expand in the near future and if nothing is done,
destroying the barn will become the only option. The thought of
tearing down another historic building in town does not sit well
with me. The demolition and removal will be costly and potentially
leave us an ugly parking area for years to come.
At the
hearing, I proposed an option to create a seasonal space that could
be used by the library. Using volunteers and donations, I believe
that we can create a clean, secure, and pleasant looking building,
available for community use. I revisited the barn with two people
who have had experience with barn restoration and confirmed that
this is a viable option.
I am
planning on presenting this idea to the Library Trustees and would
like to know the level of support by the citizens. I am also
interested in understanding how the community could use this space.
One suggestion was a farmers' market. Please let me know what you
think about this idea and if you are willing to support the effort
by volunteering or donating. Please email
[email protected] or call me
at 603-396-6663.
Clayton
Wood
Letter
Dear
Suncook Valley Community,
We are
writing to ask people to help us to recycle. We have been learning
that sea animals are dying. We’ve seen examples of many animals sick
or dying because of plastic in the ocean.
Did you
know that garbage that ends up in the ocean comes together in a
place called a garbage patch, which looks like a floating pile of
garbage? If we don’t keep sea animals safe from trash in the sea,
they will die. We won’t have any seafood to eat, like yummy lobster,
shrimp, fish and crabs.
We
should recycle as much as possible. We learned from Lisa at BCEP
that our towns can recycle clean paper, plastic with numbers 1 and
2, glass that is rinsed out, and metal. The more we recycle, the
more new things we can have!
We are
helping to keep less trash out of landfills. Sea animals will be
healthier and happier because there is less trash in the ocean.
We’ve been working hard to do more recycling in our classroom.
Please join us and recycle anything you can!
Your
friends in the M&M class at Pittsfield Elementary School,
Aiden,
Kayla, Keegan, Payton, and Raymond
Free
Patriotic Concert
Music
old and new is what you will experience at the free patriotic
concert Friday, June 15, 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church,
24 Main Street, Pittsfield. All ages are sure to enjoy “Salute to
America!” with delightful American favorites, a salute to our Armed
Forces and many other familiar songs.
It will
feature the church’s Chancel Choir and JuBellation Handbell Choir
and other participants. Light refreshments will be served.
Don’t
miss this lovely event – an evening of glorious music honoring our
country. Parking and wheelchair accessible entry are available at
the Chestnut Street entrance. More information at:
www.pittsfieldcc.org or
435-7471. God Bless America!
Letter
To The Editor
To the
editor:
Thank
you for prominently featuring the announcement of the 2018 Catamount
Womenaid Spring Plant Sale in The Suncook Valley Sun. The May 19
event at The Lily Inn in Epsom was well attended by your readers;
many of those attending said that they had come because of seeing
the article in your paper.
We are
thankful for the many home gardeners who donated plants and for the
volunteers who helped us pot up over 500 plants! Several area
businesses also donated to the sale: Cavarretta Gardens in
Northwood, The Copper House in Epsom, K and K Landscaping in Epsom,
Piney Woods Farm in Deerfield, Pleasant View Gardens in Loudon and
the Van Berkum family in Deerfield.
Almost
$2,200 was raised, all of which will be used to provide immediate
emergency financial assistance to men, women and children in
Deerfield, Epsom, Northwood, Pittsfield and Strafford.
Our
next fundraising event will be the Deerfield Veterinary
Clinic/Catamount 5K at the Deerfield Fairgrounds on November 4.
Learn more about Catamount Womenaid at
www.catamountwomenaid.org.
Volunteers are needed throughout the year; contact
[email protected].
Sincerely,
Christie Gerasimchik
Fran
Miller
From
The Farm - Glorious Grass
Submitted By Carole Soule
Cows
enjoy grass at a leased pasture in Canterbury.
June is
upon us and thanks to lots of rain and snow, grass is exploding out
of the ground. This abundance means it's time for the “Cow Taxi” to
deliver our fifty or so head of cattle to remote pastures leased
from local landowners.
When
asked how many acres it takes to feed a cow my answer is always, “It
depends.” It depends on rain, on the density of the grass, on
management practices. For instance, am I practicing “Rotational
Grazing” or “Continuous Stocking?” Rotational Grazing mimics feeding
patterns of native critters such as the buffalo. Remember in the
song “Home on The Range” the line “Where the Buffalo Roam”? By
roaming, buffalo created rich, lush pastures. Buffalo would strip a
landscape of vegetation, fertilizing as they moved through an area.
Then they would move on, giving plenty of time for grass to re-grow
until they returned to graze weeks or months later.
“Continuous Stocking” means leaving livestock on a pasture for
months or maybe all summer. Livestock continuously nibble the new
grass never giving it time to reach 8 or 10 inches - the perfect
height for grazing. This method doesn't allow roots to grow; what
you see above ground is reflected in the root system. If grass is 1
inch tall, then the roots are only 1 inch which means that in a
drought the grass is going to wither. If grass is 10 inches tall,
the roots are 10 inches deep - giving access to moisture even
without rain.
When
the grass pops out of the ground in May and June, it's a rush to
move fifty of my seventy-five head of cattle to greener pastures.
Miles Smith Farm has only thirty-five acres of fields, where I keep
about twenty-five head during the summer. To graze the others, we
lease nearby pastures. Right now most of our cattle are happily
munching grass on fields in Barnstead, Canterbury, Boscawen,
Gilmanton, and Cole Garden Center. As the livestock eat through the
early Spring grass, we'll “taxi” them to other leased fields, giving
the eaten fields time to recover. With enough rain, we can return
them to these first pastures after the grass has recovered.
After a
few years of grazing, the quality of our leased pastures has
improved. It's easy to see the difference between fields that have
been mechanically mowed and those that are harvested by cattle. The
grass is sumptuous, weed-less, and brush-free where cows have been
pastured. The mechanically mowed fields are weedy and lean.
Cattle
and grass were made for each other, no doubt about it and as the cow
taxi shuttles animals around you can be sure that we are treating
our cows to the best grass possible while improving the soil. Other
local farmers may not have a “Cow Taxi” but many practice rotational
graing, so if you want to make a difference, skip buying meat from
“away.” Seek out a local farmer, buy a quarter or half a cow to put
in your freezer and you will be doing your part to help the local
economy and keep the grass growing as the “Buffalo Roam.”
Carole
Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, in Loudon, NH. She can be
reached at [email protected].
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